


five rumors told about poe dameron (and one he tells himself)

by andsparkles, goshemily



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 5 Times, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Multi, OT3, Pining, Rumors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5600446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andsparkles/pseuds/andsparkles, https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/pseuds/goshemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stories Finn hears when he wakes up in the medbay are manifold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five rumors told about poe dameron (and one he tells himself)

The stories Finn hears when he wakes up in the medbay are manifold. First, he hears that the Starkiller was destroyed; this is not a rumor.

Second, he hears that Poe Dameron (“ _POE DAMERON!_ ,” said in tones of awe by his attending doctor) has just left his bedside.

1\. 

Third, he hears that Poe is apparently – royalty?

“ _Finn_ ,” breathes Rey in tones similar to the doctor, “I heard he’s some kind of – _king_ or something? I’m not sure.”

“King?” Finn asks, still mostly doped up on pain meds and more than a little distracted by the way the light catches in Rey’s hair, like a caress.

“Jessika told me,” Rey explains. “I don’t think Poe cares? He’s here on D’Qar, anyway. Maybe he _abdicated_.” She says this like it means something, like it echoes grand stories she heard when she was small, but to Finn all the rumor means is that Poe has someone waiting for him somewhere.

2.

Finn still doesn’t understand BB-8, so he’s more grateful than not that most of the droids on base speak Standard, even if bringing C-3PO to a point is difficult.

“Really,” C-3PO says, “I was _most_ surprised to hear that Commander Dameron was spying for the First Order.”

“ _What_?” Finn sits up so fast his back screams.

“Yes, I heard it from a sustenance unit in the scullery. Apparently, he and –” C-3PO’s inflection almost changes “– Kylo Ren were quite the item several years ago, when that unfortunate young man still answered to the name of ‘Ben Solo.’ It is so distressing, how fickle humans can be.”

“I don’t believe it,” Rey says flatly when she visits that night. “It’s just a rumor.”

Still, she looks troubled. Finn holds her hand before she leaves.

3.

Recovery is _boring_. Everyone else is busy all the time, and even when Poe and Rey – and General Organa, who stops by once and who called Finn _brave_ – visit, they can only offer so much company before they have to return to their own lives. The best distraction from the agony of Finn’s back (“He’s gonna walk again, right? Doc? _Doc_?” Poe asks one evening, trying to keep quiet, thinking Finn asleep) is learning about the outside world.

 _RESISTANCE STOOGE FOILED!_ trumpets the _Orderly News_ a few weeks into Finn’s recovery. _THE FIRST ORDER HAS DISCOVERED ALL!_ It’s the weekly rag passed around Stormtroopers’ mess halls and it’s easy to find the paper on the Resistance base, which imports it for novelty as much as for reconnaissance. The article is accompanied by a glamour shot of Poe, his hair lustrous and falling rakishly over his brow, and includes details about his curling iron regimen.

The _Orderly News_ reports that in the past, Poe did shampoo commercials meant to entice people to his cause by highlighting the Resistance’s decadence – pun, Finn suspects, very much intended. There can be little else that keeps the propaganda writers of the First Order entertained.

“Oh please,” Rey says when she visits that evening, wrung out by her training with Skywalker. “As if.”

Finn agrees. There’s something… stalwart about Poe. His hair might be perfect, but he’s unlikely to take time or effort away from the struggle for a modeling gig. Unless he really did do it to beguile wavering Stormtroopers…

4\. 

Finn wakes up in the middle of the night to find Luke Skywalker sitting by his bedside. He thinks he’d probably be more impressed if he hadn’t been a) programmed from a young age with stories of Luke’s impotence, and b) used to seeing Rey sweaty and lethargic post-Jedi training, glowing with the healthy goodwill of the Force but still full of the same insouciant authenticity that had first knocked him on his ass on Jakku.

“I worry about you two,” Luke says.

“What?” Finn’s always at his best in the middle of the night.

“You and Rey. You watch Commander Dameron with the kind of intensity that inhibits balance. You should know that his affection is not concentrated.”

“Excuse me?” Finn is still mostly asleep. Also, why isn’t Luke asleep? Also, why is Luke bringing this up at all?

“Although there is neither Light nor Dark in promiscuity,” Luke looks pained, as if he’s thinking of someone particular, “sharing of oneself does make it easier to succumb to jealousy. We bare ourselves –” he hesitates, clearly noticing the unfortunate word choice, and Finn nods and hopes this will be over soon, “- and the more we do, the more opportunities for discord arise.”

“Are you saying Poe is an agent of the Dark?” Finn laughs. He can’t help it.

“No.” Luke looks concerned. “I’m only saying that I want you and Rey to be careful.” 

5\. 

“Stop making eyes at Black Leader,” hisses a pilot Finn doesn’t recognize, glaring at Finn the first time he ventures through the halls by himself sans friends or medical personnel.

“What?” Finn feels like he’s been asking this question a lot lately. The halogen lights in the corridor glare, and his head aches.

“You heard me. It goes against his _vow_ , to be tempted.”

“What?” Finn is still trying to place the pilot. He and Rey have hung out with Poe’s group a couple of times, and Poe has tried to integrate the two of them into the lifeblood of the base. But Finn doesn’t recognize the pilot.

“He took a vow when he was a teenager,” the pilot says. “He’ll never succumb to the pleasures of the flesh. He won’t love anyone because he’s going to _dedicate his life to the Resistance_.” The pilot glowers at him, eyes bright and almost fanatical. “Poe is pure. He’s not going to give in. Stop trying to tempt him.”

“I’m not?” Finn is mostly confused, except for the parts of him that are outraged and the parts of him that are sore. Walking hurts.

He decides not to share this particular rumor with Rey, if only because he wants to spare the base another round of her infamous lectures on the importance of agency.

\+ 1

General Organa visits Finn in Poe’s quarters after Finn has finally been officially released from the medbay.

“How are you settling in?” she asks, and it still throws Finn for a loop that the officers in the Resistance act like they care about how well he’s adjusting.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m good.”

“Have you talked to your friends?”

“Sure, every day.” This is kind of weird. Do officers care about friends?

“Have you talked to them about the balance between you?” She looks pained, more so than usual, as if the bitter loss of Solo is close to the surface.

“No…?” Finn doesn’t really know what she’s asking.

“The scuttlebutt,” Leia Organa says – like that’s not a word for smugglers from centuries past, like Finn shouldn’t be surprised as she stands beside him with a hand on his knee – “is that Poe Dameron cares for you and Rey deeply. For both of you.”

Finn doesn’t say anything. He can’t. There’s a hollow place inside him where there could be hope.

“Poe is a terrible liar,” says the General, “not that he’ll admit it.”

“I’m a great liar,” Poe says from the doorway, with Rey at his elbow. His voice is deep and kind of sweet. His hair looks great. “What am I lying about, now?”

“Nothing,” the General says. “Absolutely nothing.” She sweeps out of the room, pausing only to clasp her hand to Rey’s shoulder along the way, and disappears out into the thrum of the base before Finn even knows what she wanted to ask him.

“So.” Poe sticks his hands in his pockets and looks at Rey, who is wearing his jacket, and then at Finn, who is lying on Poe’s spare cot and trying not to blush.

“What’s she talking about?” Finn asks, which takes most of his courage.

Rey looks at Poe as if she’d like to figure him out without words, but she’d never use the Force to read him without asking.

“Well,” Poe prevaricates. “Buddy.” 

“Yeah?”

Poe looks at Rey, then at Finn again. He looks them right in the eyes.

He takes a breath. "There’s a rumor going around base that I like both of you. That we’re going out. That we’re fucking. That, hell, we’re engaged and I have to marry you within a month to thwart both the Knights of Ren and the minor royalty of my home planet.”

“And?” Rey nudges Poe with her foot, and Finn tries not to hyperventilate. They both look _so good_ , standing there in the doorway, almost as if they’re both within Finn’s reach.

“The truth is… I like you. Both of you.” Poe smiles, and it looks like the sun. “Wanna get dinner tonight?”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year's Eve, fandom! We went to see TFA and then got drunk, which led to lots of headcanon speculations. Oops. Friends are great.


End file.
